Tag Archives: rose

Summer is going way too fast. I am having a hard time keeping up with the gardens, let alone finding the time to write blog posts. As I have mentioned before however, I still grab my camera often and snap pictures outside…usually in the evening after supper.

My climbing roses were absolutely stunning this year. I have four William Baffin climbing roses: two climbing up the porch and two on an arbor by the vegetable garden.

I planted these two roses by the porch the summer after we completed constructing our home, in 2001. They are 12 years old and still going strong. They are zone 2 or 3, depending on what you read, and are a perfect match for our frigid Minnesota winters.

The plants were so loaded down with buds this year that the branches were drooping under their weight.

I absolutely love the color of these pink beauties and the blooms just keep unfolding over a couple of weeks. Even after the initial heavy blooming period there are still scattered flowers to enjoy all summer long.

My only wish is that these roses were more fragrant. Surprisingly, they have very little smell, even though they are often described as having “fragrant deep-pink blossoms.”

In the spirit of full disclosure, these climbing roses do not come without a fair amount of work. I battle the thorny growth each spring to thin it out, cut out dead canes, and to tie it up and keep it focused. I usually have to deal with it at least one other time during the summer to continually train the new canes to grow in the right direction.

From my porch I can look out and see more climbing roses by the vegetable garden. I planted these roses later than the porch ones, some time after we built the fence.

They are finally getting close to the top of the arbor. I am hoping they eventually will reach over the top.

If you are looking for a prolific climbing rose, give the William Baffin rose a try. You will not regret it!

The days of summer are quickly coming to an end. I don’t feel like I’ve had much of a summer this year with all the craziness, but we have nonetheless managed to enjoy some fresh produce from the garden along the way. Our usual efforts at preserving some of our summer bounty to enjoy during the winter have however, been seriously lacking this year. In total, we have managed to preserve about 10 half pints of raspberry jam and a few bags of frozen raspberries.

It is not too late though! We do have big plans to actually can some salsa and make some applesauce in the next few days. We’ll see how that goes for us. 🙂

In the meantime, here is a photo I took as I was wandering around my garden one morning in late June.

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My husband and I are just two farm kids that decided to purchase a run down, "lots of potential" hobby farm over a decade ago. We have been trying to blend our chaotic life with a slice of country life from our past ever since. Follow our successes and failures here in gardening, beekeeping, cooking and smoking foods, endless renovation projects, raising chickens, and raising kids.

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